Tuesday, June 13, 2017

It’s a town which is associated
with music, dance , drama and ayurveda. It is across the blue line of hills
that separates it from Coimbatore. And the village of Kalpathy is associated
with heaven itself. “Bathe in it’s river, and you will go to heaven.” The
temples of Kalpathy are famous for it’s rath festivals. The guide books
describe it as a melting point for all the people of Kerala. Kalpathy is a
Brahmin enclave.The Brahmins are Tamil Brahmins. They are said to have arrived
600years ago. To avert a famine and illness which was raging among his people,
the Rajav asked his astrologers what he should do. They told him to build a
temple. But then, the Rajav could not cooperate with hisNamboodri priests, he could not control
them…so he invited the Tamil Brahmins. They came from Mayavaram near Tanjavore.
Eighteen villages were set up in Pallakad, and the temples were identical with
those of Tamil Nadu, except that the gopuram of the Tamil temples is missing.
In these temples the Devan is important, while in Kerala it is the Devi who is
usually emphasized.

A woman from Kalpathy called
Lakshmi Ammal went to Varanasi on pilgrimage and got the stone, that is the
original stone dedicated here in the Kalpathi Viswanatha Swamy temple. The
Kalpathy village is now a heritage site. For residents like Lakshmi Narayanan,
Kalpathy is their home, associated with the temples and the tradition of music.
Veda and Music are like railway tracks, he says, running parallel to each
other. He mentions Challakudi Narayan, Mridunga Subbier and Pallakad Mani Iyer.
I have already visited the residence of the kinsman of Pallakad Mani Iyer. That
gentleman hasa large portrait in his
house of the famous mridangam player, and when I ask him the history of the
community, he tells me that he has a website! All the details on the website
provide the description of Kalpathy, it’s history and its environs, including
the five temples, for every ward has it’s own temple, and also the river which
forms the boundary of the village. So very early, I have found my local
historian.

Kalpathy temples are a tourist
destination, for their beauty and their culturalvitality. In November, the inner lanes of
Kalpathy become packed with residents, visitors and tourists allof whom are excited by the rituals and the
market that springs up for the rath festivals. The huge raths lie in the street
otherwise, testimony to the grandness of ritual. Kalpathy consists ofa community of Brahmins who are now Malayalis
by virtue of their residence, but their original Tamil Brahmin identity is well
asserted. They were once agriculturists, but the enclave is associated with
pathshalla or teaching work, Accountancy, Veda specialization as in chanting
and publishing, all fields of education such as Literature, Musicand Science. Families have been associated
with clerical work as much as with more powerful roles in administration.
Residents believe in caste, for that is their heritage and their capital, but
they do not believe in communalism. Caste, they say, is the classification of
actions and duties. They are impoverished by modernism, and yet the poor
Brahmin is the icon of hard work and integrity. How do they cope? One of the
resident, Ram Narain tells me that “In Kali Yuga, one must be silent and
observe.” He tells me that Hinduism is about meditation, trance, vision,
knowledge and the inner voice. Maybe this is why music is such a strong part of
the vocabulary of the young and the old in Kalpathy. In the evening, one can
hear singing coming from almost every street, and lots of young children can be
seen carrying violins. For Ram Narain’s son, there are four gods who must be
worshipped: they are the parents, the village deity, the family deity and the
ishta deva (the God of one’s choice).

This gentle world was recently
disrupted by the offer of “heritage site”by the state government, but the residents say that it was not an offer,
it was imposed on them without warning.Laxmi Narayanan says it is the “culture of the people” which is the
heritage, andanyinsensitive display of political power, which
does not take community representatives, into consultation, will always create
problems for residents.

Roads in Kalpathy were dug up,
the open sewage system which was previously community responsibility, was
cemented up, so that the blockages andgeneral inconvenience are now frequent, and cannot be cleared. The
Government had offered the families three lakhs as renovation money, but then
said they would have to move out, to accommodate tourists. “Who would agree to
that?” Before the heritage papers could be cleared in official quarters, people
startedselling their houses to
builders. So Kalpathy will lose its quaintness, and accommodate outsiders in a
volume that the water and sewage capacities cannot handle. So much of urban
planning is done without consulting the residents, who are completely ignored
as if they have no will or intelligence, that it leaves the sociologist quite
baffled. A heritage site should be protected and conserved, not redonein an untidy slip shod manner with crumbling
cement over original granite. There was no interaction between tourist
department and electricity department, between tourist department and water
department.For the inhabitants of
Kalpathy, tourism and modernism have meant the suggestion by thestate government that their houses be
mortgaged for” improvement” when they love their traditional homes, and then
given over to the State for use as tourist Homes in four or five years! This is
so absurd a suggestion that people are left aghast at the idea of a Heritage
Site.

In Ram Narain’s youth there was acontinuity between the houses. On festival
days, the plantain leaves for community feasting would be spread in a single
line, and every one would eat together.

The car festival is a replica
of ritualsperformed inthe original hamlet in Tanjavore. All the
gods are celebrated in Kalpathy.There
are no boundaries between castes in the Rath Ullsavam. Muslims and Christians
have been traditionally present as shop keepers. The music festival is a
National festival which brings thousands into Kalpathy. It is known as Kalpathy
Sangeetha Ullsavam.

I was in Kalpathy on 14th
April 2007.It was Tamil New Year. In
Kalpathy, the sense of jubilation was evident in the evening. Because of the
temples in every street, and the row of shops near the Siva-Parvati temple
there was a sense of bustling joy. The houses are arranged in this “grammam” or
village in a concentration, as in Mylapore, or in any traditional town with a
temple. Each room leads to another, and in the evenings, the occupants sit on
the ledge, or even on the road.

The afternoons are very hot.
This year the temperature is unusual, but it also rained quite miraculously.
Kalpathy river rushes along at the edge of the Agraharam, as the settlement of
Brahmins is called. From 4 a.m onwards, bathers arrive, wash their clothes on
the steps, have their baths, and then with towels tied on their head, the women
make an obeisance at the Bhagawathi temple. There are two temples side by side
on the edge of the river, one to Bhagyavati, the patron goddess of Kerala, and
the other to that constant visitor who never discriminates, Krishna.

With Tsunami and now
Chikanguniya ravaging the state of Kerala, I’m always puzzled why any religious
shrine would keep anyone out! People need a place to pray, or atleast share the
state of calm brought about by faith, who ever it be. My study of Mannarkad
church in the 1980s, andalso of Kurisu
Palli in Puthenangadi, Kottayam showed that people of all faiths arrive in
sacred places. Sacred places are associated with universalism. Mystudy ofRamanasramam and Tiruvannamalai, shows that wherever people believe God
to be present congregations appear, regardless of distinction.

I ask Lakshmi Narayan, whose wife is the
elected councillor for Kalpathy, whether there is a Pallakad Rajav anymore,
they say “Vamsham ondu, Rajav Illa!” I wonder today, if the priests of all
religions have a stake in keeping others out…and empirically speaking ofcourse
they do. Control and Homogeniety go together. I would like to study Kalpathy
one day, but born of Christian parents will I be allowed to enter and ask my
questions? I don’t know. I hope to revisit Pallakad in November to see how the
influx of foreigners and tourists impact upon this small beautiful and
courteous hamlet, where exquisite manners are the norm. Of Kalpathy, everyone
always say,”The people of Kalpathy are very nice.” Their food culture is as
famous as their music. This is true of Pallakad in general. When you get off at
the station you hear the most wonderful music, and can buy the most impressive
breakfasts.

!5th April is Vishu,
the Malayalam New Year, and the culmination of the a Harvest. There is an
honouring of fruits and leaves and flowers. The Malayalis have been bursting
crackers continuously since early morning. They bathe at the crack of dawn, and
go to the temple wearing new clothes, flowers in their hair and are generally
jubilant and adorned.

I realize then,that the river never asks anyone whether
their mother or father was a Hindu before allowing them to bathe, or share in
that lovely sense of water and sunlight which Pallakad always brings to my
mind, with the blue hills of the ghats in the horizon. We were in Pallakad for
Christmas 2006, and my old classmate fromthe ‘70s in JNU, Nirmala Nair, who is aPallakad novelist and activist, brought her daughters along to visit us,
and and no one asks them “Which half of you is Christian, and which half is
Hindu?”

Mr
Lakshmi Naryan believes that the down fall of the Vijaya Nagar Empire was
accompanied by North Indian invasion, a Muslim invasion which caused the Tanjore
barahmins to migrate. The Pallakad Rajav was pleased to see them for this
reason, since he,A Royal family member had a liasion with
a tribal woman, the Namboodiris refused to serve in the temple. The migrants
served in their place." Since they were well versed in the vedic
tradition, including mathematics and thescripturalarts, they were welcomed.

Mr
Krishnan, an eminent lawyer,livingin Ooty, (whose son practises in the Supreme
Court visits the Kalpathy Viswam temple in thanksgiving when a sonis born,) says that they were “hydraulic
victims.” The drought had made them leave theirnatal territories, and being informed in the Vedas they were welcomed by
the King.”

Mr K.N. Lakshmi Narayan states regarding the music festival in Kalpathy, that,
in 1986 the music festival was started. Gigi Thompson was the Collector, and he
helped in setting it up. Mr Narayan and MrThompson collected money, Mr Gigi
Thompson was the Chairman of the first
committee. TVS Sundaram was the co-ordinator.Later the Government, then the tourism
promotion board got involved.

27th
June 2009

The local
historian Mr Lakshmi Naarayan has promised to take me inside the Kalpathy
Viswanath Swamy temple,since as a
Syrian ChristianI cannot access it’s
interiors without permission. He says that I can circle the interior of the
temple, like tourists do, but not present myself before the sanctum, since that
is not permitted. While we are waiting for him to get ready, we go inside the
temple precincts which has a shopping area. This, as we have been told is open
to anyone. There are some residences on either side of the temple, a tailor’s
shop and another with sells holy pictures, oil and beads.

Rajan
Narayanan, a priest doing rituals for the dead talks to us. He says that Lakshmi
Ammal, a widow had returned from Benares, given coins to the temple and left
the stone there, The stone is a lingam, it is about six feet tall. It had
inscriptions but now these are gone. (We have photographs of the inscriptions,
a temple spokesman says comfortingly. Since Kerala has a wood tradition, it is
possible that the medieval script was not seen as significant by the asari who
polished the stone.)

Kalpathy is the place where Lakshmi Ammal
established the lingam from Benaras, and so it is called the Banaras of the
South, for those who cannot take ashes to Benaras, may visitKalpathyViswanath Swamy temple for the
mortuaryceremonies of their kinfolk. The connection with Benaras
continues, and Lakshmi Narayan tells us that in Vishwanath Swamy temple in
Benaras, every evening rituals and songs support the Tamil pilgrims under the
umbrella of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi.

We walk
around the renovated Temple. Mr Lakshmi Narayan is very proud of the changes,
and old ladies congratulate him on the continuous work of modernization. Every
twelve years it is renovated (or should be) according to him. Only one rafter
of the old temple has been incorporated into the new structure. The rest have
been built back into the wooden portals of a building, like a shed, with an
aluminium roof, at the rear courtyard..they are pretty wood carvings with
simple motifs of flowers. Surrounding this facing the river, is a small sacred
garden which is kept scrupulously clean by the old attendant. The snake stones
are venerated here.

Mr Lakshmi
Narayan tells me that Kalpathy is convenient ritual site for many families in
Kerala, to carry out their funerary rituals. The priests are called
Shivacharyas and are trained in the agamams. Originally they were from
Mayavaram, but now some come from Coimbatore. They must be trained in the
scriptures, they must be recognised or accepted by the serving priests. The
Smartha Iyers, who live in Kalpathy are not equipped to deal with mortuary
rituals being householders. However they are very learned in scripture, and
there are some very well known Deekshitar families.

We walk
toward the river. It is terribly stagnant, inspite of the myth surrounding it,
that to bathe in Kalpathy is to know heaven. The river is blocked, silted up,
crammed with weeds and sludge and water hyacinths. Who will clean the river?
Sand mining is creating a block. Further up there are three small dams which
further obstruct the rivers’ slow. About the sand miners’ Mr Lakshmi Narayan
only says, “One cannot say anything! That is how they make a living.” I read
later in the Hindu that there have been death threats to those who obstruct the
miners.. Further up, garbage blows into the river. After the election, no one
has come forward to help with river maintenance.

29th
June 2009

I have
been buying needles, shampoo and other things from one of those ubiquitous
stores in Kerala which are calledFancy
Stores.They have everything from soap
and washing powder to artificial jewellery, buttons and baubles and toys.The
owner is a man called Sethu Madhavan who worked in Pallakad station for
decades. It is a success story that Kerala knows so well, for he came to
Pallakad for work, bought a house and settled down. His son in law,
Achutanandan Prasad is an accountant with an eye for antiques. The house is
beautifully embellished with old things, each lovingly carved from wood, bought
from demolished Kalpathy houses, from
shops and stores in New Bazaar. Prasad used to come to bathe in Kalpathy river
when he was a boy, and studied in the local school. Each of the objects he has
bought costs a great deals. Sethu Madhavan is extremely proud of his new house,
constructed with marble floor and his son in law’s good taste in antiques. They
have been written about in a well known Malayalam magazine.

Prasad,
the antique collector, says that the Brahmins are going through a decline which
happens to many communities during historical periods. The subject of the poor
Brahmin is of great interest to the community. They have lost traditional
occupations and skills, and have become auto drivers, shopkeepers and
labourers.

Mr Lakshmi
Narayan tells me his father was a Sanskrit scholar who had the ability to cross
over and weave and plait texts“Jedda”
they used to call him. Opposite his house , where the owner has built a pretty
cottage with a charming garden, which has a coniferous tree,there was once a printing press which
published Sanskrit works. He says,

“Some
people in the gramam may still have copies. In the 1920s it shut down for lack
of buyers and a new press opened. They print texts, but not necessarily Sanskrit.
When people say “Heritage Village”today it is limited to taking some foreigners
for a walk around Kalpathy. Preservation of culture is not limited to
buildings, it is not only about buildings it is about vedic culture, about
music, mathematics and scriptural knowledge,
that is,Sanskrit.”

The Tamil
Brahmins in Kalpathy remains migrants in Kerala, though they have been here for
centuries. Mayavaram, or Maileaddiathooram
remain extolled, though not many people may visit the ancestral oor. The
temple is 650 years old, and by the records in the memory of residents, it is
the woman Ammal(or Lakshmi Ammal ) who established the stone, by decree of the King,
so that Kalpathy and the river became embodiments of Shiva Shakti of
BenarasVishwanath Swami and the Ganges respectively. Achutanandan Prasad says a
dip in Kalpathy is worth half of a dip in Benaras. No one is ready however to
take any action over the increasingly polluted river. Prasad says, “It cannot
be done by a single individual.”The
Kalpathy river is dependent on the Mallampuzha dam for its rapid flow. During
the summer months, water is diverted from the dam to the town for drinking
purposes, so the farmers and the pilgrims have to manage with the minimal flow,
silted, trees growing in the middle, and stagnation. In a later part of this
paper, I will discuss the significance of the Mallampuzha dam for Pallakad and
its inhabitants.

People
still come from far to bathe in the Kalpathy river, and women can be seen
carrying their buckets of washing in the early morning, and jumping into the
bus with their children andwomen
friends, long hair washed in the river. Cows are washed in the afternoon. The
men come after a day’s work, as do boys in the evening.

The
transformation of a Brahmin agraharam by commerce is very visible in the recent
past. Mila, a trained homeopath who has been living in the same house for 26
years, says that they have not renovated their home, because one has to go to
Thiruvanthapuram to get the papers to do this. She looks around, where by the
day, houses are being demolished and rebuilt. Most of new Kalpathy has become
vividly commercial, there is a herbal beauty shop, and Ayurveda clinic, two
telephone and internet shops, a private milk
depot, a food shop (canteen and caterers) document writers, an old age home and
office. It then merges with the temple complex, and the shopping arena which
has a series of grocers’ shops very well stocked withprovisions, a tailors shop, a fancy store for
women and children, a kitchen wares store,a cycle repairs shop, and a Milma or government milk depot, a bakery and
three eateries for tourists and piligrims. There are two pickle stores, one of
them run by two ladies who are local residents, and sell fried savouries in
packets along with pickles and appalams or pappads. There are coir and broom dealers,
a carpenters shop,a publishing
houseand a clothes store, and ofcourse
well stocked medical stores. Fruit merchants and flower merchants have push
carts stationed in front of the Temple. There is also two shops selling betel
leaf, fruit, lemon drinks and eggs. The last is a representation of changing
times, since eggs and non vegetarian foodwere traditionally not to be found in Kalpathy. However, the former
residents are selling their homes to others, and new mosaics of residenceand food customs are now to be found. Ezhavas
and Nairs traditionally meat eating, are found serving the Brahmans, and one of
them laughed and said, “In the flats if the tenant wants to eat and cook meat,
the Board cannot say anything.” However, while diaspora Tamils may eat eggs,
there is a circular taken out, if meat or fish are cooked, saying this is strictly forbidden. The flats are taking over
the Heritage Village rapidly, and the sky line is beginning to change, as
people return to Kalpathy because it is a sacred site, but still remember neighbourhoods in Delhi or in Bombay with
affection. I have had interesting conversations with diaspora Tamil women
(always perfectly dressed in thecalm of
their homes) who accompanied their bureaucrat husbands to various parts of
India, and who speak Hindi with felicity, while being nostalgic about theshops in Sector 1 R.K. Puram, which I too,
know well. Many of them still have
children in big cities in India, or more likely in Amercia or Singapore, the
citadels of the computer men and women.

It is not
necessary to cook meals at home in Kalpathysince there are excellent caterers who bring food to the door step on
request. Even the cakes soldat the
bakery were “ghee cakes.” Outside the local eateries which are crammed with
clientele, mainly theworking class and
the middle class pilgrims from outside the village, the Brahmin men and
womencongregate outside the “Mess”
where caterers sell appam, dosas, vadas, coffee and all sorts of sweets and
delicacies known to them such as shoondal, sewai and parram vada. As if this
were not enough, there are pakoda sellers doing brisk business too. On my first
visit to Kalpathy, I made an awful hybrid type language mistake. While my
daughters asked for dosas, I said very grandly, “Ennika Thali Vennam!” I
imagined that a plate with steaming curries and rice would appear. It was 5
p.m. The owner of the café looked totally aghast, and then perplexed. “Tali
Vennam?” I had asked for a plate of food using a Hindi word, but he converted
it into a word that Brahmins and Nairs must have had in common for many
centuries i.e, a marriagelocket. My
secular Syrian Christian identity was immediately undercut. A kind woman eating
with her husband said “Shaddam Vennam” which means Rice. Malayalis would have
used the word Chor, since that is what they use in everyday language. Being
Malayali in erstwhile Madras Presidency has its problems for the secular
scholar whose earlier work was in Travancore. The questions of language,
politics and identity are too large to present here, but would include the
questions of the historical location of Pallakad both in medievalism and after
the Merger, when it came to Kerala: agriculture and caste and language are the
key motifs of that ensemble. Deekshitar, the most eminent of the men in the
agraharam, asked his relative who I was, and the man answered “Angadikar” which
could mean a resident, but was traditionally used for Syrian Christians, who as
pepper merchants were traditionally allowed into the agraharam. It may be
noticed that caste as exclusionary is the subject of fiction writers attention,
and in modernism the problem reappears in new ways which are yet to be
analysed. Class becomes read in Kerala through the motifs of dispossession of
land and property, and in the agraharam, which resembles an emptied out
landscape as the old and infirm remain posted for relatives who have made new
lives elsewhere, tradition is crystallized in motifs of archival significance:
music being one of them.

While the
street on New Kalpathy remains completely empty in the afternoon because of the
heat, the bright white light, an unblemished azure sky, during the early morning
it is busy with school children waiting for the bus, with parents, waiting with
them, old people reading the newspapers, women drawing the ornamental and
sacred kollam. Evenings are markedly different, everyone comes out to chat and
talk. Families sit at their verandahs, the women wear jasmines in their hair,
the children play and sing and chatter. The men are often comfortable in their
white sarongs, bare chested with only the sacred thread as upper vestment. The
street is a public thoroughfare with fruit vendors and vegetable sellers, jasmine
merchants carrying their fragrant ware on bicycles or on their heads in
baskets. Kalpathy is rapidly becoming a flatted area. The residents in the flatswhich are now elbowed in with the agraharam homes, are professionals who
have retired from Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi or Chennai. Elderly couples with
children abroad, or in the metropolis (Bangalore is a hub for professionals’
children, many of whom are in the Sciences, Industry or in Electronics) spend
their day as other retired professionals in India do, cooking cleaning, reading
newspapers and watching television, chatting to one another, over balcony walls
or in the corridors.

21st May 2008

Before one's
eyes the landscape changes. Everywhere modernization brings its own story. It
effaces the past without a murmur, or so it seems, the old changes, and gives
way to the new. The new is sometimes very brash. InNew Kalpathy, the old houses in the
hamlet, are being demolished and new cement and florid paint comes in its
stead. The street changes its face from month to month. Some people say “Only
Old Kalpathy is a heritage sight.”Old
shops are replaced by new ones. The old people in the agraharam,sit outside their porches,
looking like the ancient scribes, recording the past in memory. The ancient
snake circle near the the river has gone. Ancient stones under the peepal tree,
representing Shiva, Shakti, faceless gods and goddesses as well, snakes and
flat stones, are now replaced with a brand new Ganesha. Only three stones
remain of the many in the circle, Shiva, Shakti and one cobra.

The street is
quiet during the day. No one comes out. The agraharam is silent, ike a ghost
town. In the evening, visitors to the temples begin filling the streets,
standing at the rims of the temples, worshipping
the Gods. The shopkeepers are well stocked traditional grocers. They now keep
eggs along with bakery bread. In Kalpathy, traditionally, no one could keep
non-vegetarian foods. The bakery sells excellent fresh bread. The most popular
place for food is the small shop in the middle of the agraharam, where
breakfast and "tiffin" which means savouries at tea time, are served.

An old woman
sitting in the enclosed verandah of her house smiles toothlessly at me. I stop
to talk to her.

"Has your
fever gone?" she asks me.

I smile, and
say "Yes." knowing she has mistaken me for someone else.

"And are
you well? (Sukam anno?) I ask her.

"What well
being can I have at this age," she says,"I just exist. Whatever
comfort I have (sukam) is in my mind.What about you, " she says to me.

"Shantam
Aa." (I am in peace."

“So how many
days?"

"Just
today and tomorrow.

We part, with
me saying, "I'm happy to have met you."

There is great
poverty in these houses, many are derelict. Many are being rebuilt in modern
fashion, with cement and kaleidoscopic paint.

I spoke to the
grand old man Dikshitar. He is the best known and most respected of the Vidvans.
He has milky blue eyes, a top knot and diamonds in his ears. He must be 80 and
more.

"I wish to
write a book on Kalpathy”

He points to
the ledge, adjacent to him, beckoning me to sit.

“What about?”

“It's history.
Can I speak with you?”

“You need to talk
to old people who know. It's an old history that goes back and back.” He makes
whorls with his hands, indicating spirals.

“I'm a
sociologist – we record, we inscribe. Everything is changing very fast, so we
must describe it. Whatever you tell me, wish to tell me I will write it down.”

“I have no
time,” Dikshitar say.

I take his
leave and go away. He is a very great scholar, and when we see each other
everyday, wewave to one another.

I ask the
priest who has come to circumambulate the peepal tree near the Kalpathy river
where the snake circle was, and he says, "All gone, only three left."
The guard at River View apartments, where I stay, tells me an insane man came
and broke the ringed lamp as well as the stones. He crushed the stones with a
heavy stone. He damaged the ancient stones at the Shiva temple as well.

The treasurer
of the block of Flats adjoining the
river Kalpathy, says that Indra Nooyi, Pepsi Cola chief is a Kalpathi girl and
has donated to the making of a gyanamandiram or meditation chamber. Pallakad
was the site of debate over the Pepsi cola company using up ground water and
disrupting the river sources of village people. Nooyi's grandfather, Justice
Narayanan was from Kalpathy, so her mother gave three lakhs and a plaque which
is inscribed in his name.

Mr K.N. Lakshmi
Narayanan speaks with me. He runs a kiosk for telephones, and a courier
service, and is the local historian, with a website, kalpathyviswam. com. He is
on the managing committee of the Music Festival in Kalpathy, which is an annual
feature, taking place during the Ter or Car festival in November, when the
village becomes the centre of attraction for pilgrims and tourists. He retells
the story of the origin myth of Kalpathy a little differently from the previous
version of the 2006 telling. This time he tells me that the agraharam formed
because, there were mass migrations of Tamil Brahmins because of invasions by
North Indians, from Tanjore, and this included the coming of Muslims. Mr
Narayanan says, "The Namboodris were refusing to serve the Rajav, because
one of the members of the royal family had a liason with a tribal woman.
Because of the incoming migrations, the Rajav was pleased to recruit the Tamil
Brahmins as priests, where the Namboodiris no longer served him." Mr Narayan speaks about the start of
the Music festival in Kalpathy. He says that,

“It started in
1986 or 1987. Gigi Thompson was the Collector. He helped me. We collected money
for the event. The Collector was the chairman, TVS Sundaram was the co-ordinator.
Later the Government, then Department of Tourism got involved. For the first
few years, we had to struggle. Government give us more money.

For the last
two years, we have had only Carnatic Music, no dance performances, though in
the early years, we did have dance as well. As you know, dance and music are
temple arts. The Car Featival is not yet a National Festival. Puri, Jagannath
Temple has achieved national festival status, so has Trichur Guruvayoor. They
are conducted on a larger scale. Here it is smaller, but I would say, three
lakhs visit in ten days. The decorated cars of our temples come together.
The decoration is done with paper pulp, The main car is pushed by an elephant.
The people put all their strength, but the elephant is necessary for the car is
too big.

The festival is
associated with commercial activity, and this meets the needs of the villages.
For four or five centuries, Tamil Nadu merchants have been coming with cloth,
vessels, pulses and return with spices. Now the marketing system has changed,
everything is available everywhere. So the festival provides a market which
provides glittering things, which the villagers look forward to: ribbons,
vessels, women's items like bangles and such. The Ter festival (Rath or
Car) takes place on the last ten days of
the Tamil month of Epishi. The rituals echo the ones which were typical of
Mayavaram, the original place from which the Kalpathy residents come from. Some
people continue to visit, for every house has a kuladevam, and since rituals to
the kuladevam continue, they do return to villages in Tamil Nadu. Some have
property there, some have marriage relations. But this is an individual
relationship with Tanjore, one cannot generalize."

Regarding the
music festival, Mr K.N Lakshminarayan says that committees are formed in June
and July. Shamianas are conducted in Chatapura. Auditorium named after Pallakad
Mani Iyer is a little away from the village. The Music festival is a costly
business, musicians are invited, but the cost is heavy, and the committee pays
8-10 lakhs for the purpose of the ten day festival.

Mr Lakshmi
Narayan escorts me to the Viswanatha temple. I have never been inside before.
He takes me around, where tourists and non-Hindus may go. "You have to
enter a valley." We go down a flight of steps. Everything is in a process
of dismantling and construction. The Kumbha Abhishekam has just been completed.
The thatched shamiana has been dismantled, so have the makeshift altars built
for the purpose. Huge stainless steel pillars have come up, light pink tiles
roof the building , ornate woodwork with the images of gods and devotees are to
be seen. "A lot of work remains to be done" Mr Lakshmi Narayan tells
me, "We have spent one crore rupees." I'm not a modernist, so I feel
a sense of loss that old carvings have been substituted by new ones. My
daughter who is training to be a historian tells me that colonial policy did
not safeguard temples in use. The inhabitants of Kalpathy believe in change and
transformation, Mr Lakshmi Narayan is happy and proud of the new temple, and
his website (kalviviswam. Org/kalpathy) says that a temple according to the
shastras must be renovated every twelve years. It is more than twenty five
years since the last time it was improved upon. There are some old carvings,
the wood piled in the corener, there are ancient stone carvings of snakes and
Gods under a stone pillar. They may be reintegrated later. The carpenters are
at work. The temple priests are inside tending to devotees.

Amal, the 13th
century widow, who brought a “kallu” or stone from Benares, had brought a
shivalingam. This is the cornerstone of the Kalpathy Viswanath temple. Adjacent
to the shivalingam is the shrine of the Goddess. In the temple compound, there
is a tailoring shop, also a shop selling amulets.

Interestingly,
in Kalpathy, the residents knock down their houses, and watch neighhbours doing
the same. One man sitting outside his house fanning himself in the hot still
evening, the sky still fiercely blue and cloudless, laughed when I said to him,
"I heard this settlement is 700 years old."

"Is that
what they told you?"

Then very
reasonably, he said, “Maybe there were people who lived here seven hundred
years ago. These houses are nor more than 150 years old, in fact probably
renovated much later, and very frequently. Old houses were made of mud, the
living conditions were very bad, there was no air or light, they were like
guhas or caves." He likes the new houses, say they are convenient, and
have light and air.

A.Satish, in his article on the
website newindpress.com (April 4 2008) writes of Heritage Village Turning Nightmare for
Residents,

"The restriction imposed on the
repairs and alterations of the houses in Kalpathy agraharam as part of it
being declared a heritage site was turning out to be a bane for the
residents." No one in the Heritage village can construct or modify without
a go ahead from the Municipality in consultation with the Art and Heritage
Commission inThiruvanathapuram. However the subsidy of 25 percent offered by
the Tourism department will be made available only to those who "are
providing homestays.”

Clearly, the report says, the
inhabitants of Kalpathy who find maintenance of their traditional homes
expensive are disturbed by their applications for renovation lying for long
periods in municipality offices.

Kerala now depends on tourism as a
non-polluting industry. Much of the beauty of the natural landscape has
depended on craft, agriculture, fishing, and now information technology,
functioning from laboratories. Heritage sites need protection, but so do
inhabitants. My own data, as well as A.Satish's show that the large amounts of
money which have been spent on Kalpathy are not seen as helping the villagers.
It is time, that inhabitants are taken on as representatives of Government
committees and have a say collectively about what their future is.

October
2009

Kalpathy
has the sense of a picture postcard. The colours are always placid and bright.
The breeze blows cool, as if there was a beach close by. The houses are set in
such a way, that the horizon extends and is fullfilled by the temple. Suddenly
the empty road ends and there is the warmth of people and activities and
lights, colour, sound, fragrances. The solitude of the street and the
appearance of the crowds comes as a surprise. Somewhere the mosaic of people,
men and women, of different castes and communities appears, as a map of Kerala
as it is changing with urbanization. The calm and peacefulness is marked by the
appearance of the cows as they desultorily walk down the lanes, rummaging in
theoccasional garbage consisting of plantain
leaves outside the cafetarias- for the
rest, the streets are extremely clean, the frangipani, jasmines and the parjyathifrom the previous day, lie noticeably on the
streets, uncrushed by the occasional passerby.

In the
evening, the families sit outside sharing gossip – front to front – as the
houses are adjoining, the entire street now begins to resemble an open
courtyard. Fried vadas and bhajjis or pakodas are the most frequently bought ,
neghbours participating in the commerce of the everyday, buying what is
popularly called “tiffin” together. Perhaps because they love to eat fried
foods, a great deal of this is easily available. Dosas, vadas, bondas (these
are seasoned potatos, dipped in a pulse batter and fried) and a delicious sweet
called adais, which is rice batter, flattened on a banana leaf, on which is
placed cooked jack fruit with jaggery, scraped coconut, and then folded and steamed in banana leaves. A
carnival sense fills the market place every evening. The temples at the end of
every street are brightly lit, people thronging them, and the children playing.
As it happens, a lot of Kalpathy since Britishtimes has had people visiting from Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi or Cheenari,
so “gole guppa” and “bhel puri” typically Northern delicacies or urban foods
can be bought at the street corner. The Bakery has soft springy white bread,
warm and delicious, trayloads offresh
bread and buns, appearing at noon, rapidly sold at 4 p,m along with fruit
cakes, treacly and sweet icing pastries in vibrant pinks and chocolates, and the
traditional sponge cakes, for which Malyali bakeries are famous. British colonial presence is to be found in
all the small towns in the fresh bread and sponge cakes.The local eateries also
provide rice and sambhar andvegetables
on banana leaves. The Milma supplies excellent hot idlis and vadais to the auto
drivers and pilgrims who haunt the shop for good coffee and butter milk. As
they say about Paris, there is never a bad meal in Kalpathy. Eswarya Mess is
the most popular of these eateries, Crowds gather in the earlymorning and late afternoon, happy to get
large quantities of coconut chutney with their vadas and bondas. The family
living adjacent to the Easwarya Mess has put up a trestle table. Easwarya continues
to get its loyal Brahman clientele, but the vendors next door seem to get
enough customers. Especially during the ter or rath festival in November, the profits
aresubstantial never mind the size or
custom of the eateries, mobile or stable, for the rest of the year.

November 2010

Kalpathy
is ready for the annual “ter” or ‘rath” (chariot) festival. The agraharm prepares
slowly day by day. Bamboos line the street. On these advertisements come up,
banners fluttering in the wind. The houses receive the ramshackle additions
with aplomb. Everything looks makeshift. Diwali is over, the ter festival is
what Kalpathy looks forward to with excitement. I visit the Ayurved Doctor who
practices in new Kalpathy, and has a factory in Ambikapuram, and a hospital
too. They have been practicing since 1934, in Kalpathy. His father established
a practice, now he, his son and daughter circulate between three clinics in
Pallakad.

The
Arogyadayam Ayurveda Hospital is a modern double storey house with two
patients, and a clientele of outpatients. The older Dr K.K, Kumaranvaidyan, studied with his father Vaidyan KR.
Krishnan Ezuthachatn who was born in Kuthanoor village of Pallakad in 1903. In
1934, Krishnan Ezuthuchathan set up a clinic in Kalpathy. He also started the
production process of the medicines used by the present doctors. Earlier they
got the herbs from gatherers and foragers, who were “local people’ who went in
for any kind of work: gardening, cleaning of courtyards, paddy agriculture,
cement labourers. Now the government protects the right of the tribals, so the
Arogdayam pharmacy buys from shops in Pallakad, and there is a main outlet in
Trichur, to whom they place orders either by post or by phone.

I visit
his factory. It is adjacent to his house. His wife Seethalakshmi comes out to
greet me. His manager Shakkit takes me upstairs to where there is a laboratory
which checks each bottle for its purity content, and it’s alcohol base content.
Downstairs are the vats for boiling, and for storing distilling and for
bottling.

The
bottles are collected by two or three agents from New Bazaar, and then washed
with soap and water, and dried in the sun. It is a small unit, occupying the
floor space of one house of medium proportion (2000 square feet) Production
varies by the day. The output is dependent on all the factors being in place.
The laboratory check for each batch is to provide for the standardization
certificate required from the government.

Seethalakshmi
amma, who is the Vaid’s wife, is rolling the small balls that go into the
making the cough mecicine. The Manager tellsme that he cannot explain the application and use of the medicine since
these are very complex and take years to learn. The medicines (pacha maranu or
herbs) come from the town, from individual shops, and are stored in big plastic
buckets. Each herb is classified by its Sanskrit name, Malayalam name and Latin
name. Some herbs look very similar, so they have to be identified by the
specialist.

The vaid
tells me on a subsequent visit that (interview 17th April 2011) that
he has nine brothers, all of whom are or were practitioners of Ayurveda. Seven
practice in Chennai and he and his brother inherited theKalpathy practice. The two brothers were very
compatible, but his older sibling died very recently. They would meet often,
these nine brothers, discuss cases and these were very useful for them as
individual practitioners.

The
temples are getting ready for the event, lots of lights, people, shops, inspite
of the drizzle. The sky is very dark blue. The river is flowing fast and sure.
It is very different from the summer, when the river was a mere polluted
trickle, and sand miners abounded.

In
every house, guests have arrived, the accumulated slippers outside doorways
show how many are gathered. The children cycle in the rain, the girls wearing
beautiful long silk skirts. Their mothers are dressed in flamboyant silks too,
with very old diamonds glittering in
their ears. The men are less demonstrative of the suppressed excitement, but
also wearing new clothes.

These
rituals serve to integrate the five wards of the village.each with its
presiding deity. Tomorrow at 12 midnight, there will be a meeting of raths in
the street. Some say tomorrow, 12th November, others say 13th
November. I am to meet Mr Lakshmi
Narayan, the local historian and website
manager, tomorrow.

November
12th 2010

The
women at the river wash clothes late in the morning after the chores are over.
The talk is about ration ships, electricity bills, one woman has forgotten to
bring her husband’s clothes for wash. The children have lost handkerchiefs, the
mothers are laughing and complaining. One mother says that her son uses his
handkerchief to clean the seats of the bus, another says her daughter always
gives away everything she owns – handkerchiefs, bangles, even rubbers and pencils,
oh the expense of it all! They laugh a lot when engaged in a hard task. The men
chat desultorily at the back, some distance away, robing and disrobing with
ease. The bathing space is not divided, water weeds grow to divide the river,
and while the women are to be found near the steps, the men venture deeper into
the water. The women are detached, (and do not look at the men who are oiling
themselves,) they slip into their petticoats and stand in the water continuing
their baths and clothes rinsing, and scrubbing the younger children who have
accompanied them. The young girl who is already dressed in bright blue silk,
after her bath, is waiting for her mother to finish and complaining that the
ants are following her. In Malayalam there is a saying,”If you have now work,
go pour water for the ants.” The river is the site where the Malayalis gather,
and there is a temple to Bhagavati, which has been refurbished by the Tamils,
but the Malayalis all prostrate to the goddess when they are bathed and leaving
the river. The Tamil Brahmin women visit Bhagavati’s temple, and the adjoining
Krishna temple with their husbands every mornig and evening, but they tend not
to bathe in the river, since it is not their custom. While not being
antarjyatis, never the less, they prefer the calm and solitude of their homes,
and the organized meetings around prayer and ritual which are so frequently
available to them in someone or the other’s home. It is ter samayam, they are
busy cleaning their homes, waiting for relatives, and watching the close
circuit t.v which brings the streets continuously to their living room, without
their ever having to step out.

The shopkeepers in the street are beginning
to stock the ribbons, buttons, clips, bells, bangles and toys. One of them is
called Saladri. Portly, dark, handsome, he has spent twenty years in the Gulf,
in Saudi, as a courier agent, but the work was very hard. So he shifted back to
Wadakencheri and is an itinerant seller of toys at fairs. He says he was 12
years in Mumbai as well. Since he suffered from back ache from carrying loads
for the courier agency he worked for, he is now happy to earn a little everyday,
stay with his family, and now keeps in good health.

The
day is very hot. Bright white hot. The only person venturing out in the
verandah is the Deekshitar, the wisest and most learned man in the village. He has grown older year by year, and we have not
yet spoken, except to greet one another. His sole diamond in one ear gleams against
his ancient creased wise face. He is the most knowledgeable of the Sanskrit
scholars. Further up the street,the other person who is outside in the
afternoon heat, is a woman, making a pattern on the ground. She stops to gaze
at the kollam she has made, and wonders if she had made it perfectly. A man
feeds a cow and chases the bull calf away. The street is completely silent. At
the chemists, the shop girls are excited. It is the fifth day of the ter
festival. All the divine, both gods and goddesses, from all the wards, will
gather at midnight at Kalpathy Vishwanath Temple.

November
13 2010

Pushpa
who cleans for me, gave a graphic account of the rath festival. “There will be
crowds. Pushing and pulling. Chains snatchers and alcoholics will move about
freely. For the prasadam people come from miles around. The shops will be busy.
Everything that you want!”

People
gathered yesterday, the 5th day of the Ter at D.K. Pattamal Street,
known commonly as Chattanapuram. It is the same street in which there is the
Sai Homeopathy Clinic, always bursting with patients. I had visited it in
January 2007, for a moth had got in my ear, and was trapped there fortwo days, and inspite of pouring oil and
water, it did not die or float out. Then with some homeopathic oil and mediines,
it subsided. The clinic is so popular that people visit the doctors therefrom as far away as Bangalore.

The
music festival at Chattanapuram is supported by Kerala tourism. The singers
were well known and exceptionally talented. Each day is dedicated to the memory
of a traditional musicians13th
November will be to Tyagaraja,12th November was to Siva Pappan. The simplicity and joy of the
musicians is matched by the devotion of the listeners, mainly residents of the
agraharams, the women dazzling in their diamonds and silks, the men urbane and
detached. They sit on plastic chairs under shamiana roofing. Local television,
unblinkingly records every moment for the captive audiences at home, mainly old
people and housewives.

Each
pandal is embossed and decorated with the name of a patron. Joy Allukas, the Syrian Christian gold
merchant who has vulgarized Kerala’s urban landscape with his shops, has
emblazonged the roof ofKalpathy
Viswanath temple itself! Bajaj has his name up on Lakshminarayan temple in old
Kalpathy. The music pandal is sponsored by Mathrubhumi, and the State
government to promote tourism in Kerala.

The
sellers of toys, ceramics, cold drinks, picnic foods like pop corn have started
to line the road, mainly tamils from bordering towns and villages of Tamil Nadu
and Kerala. The amulets are well worked, and thepuffed rice is of astonishingly good quality
Each day brings new vendors.

At
12 midnight, the mini raths with the
gods arrive. Two from the streets adjoining Shiva-Shakti temple, known as
Viswanathaswamy, and the other from the New Kalpathy Ganesha temple. The
Shiva-Shakti rath is drawn by white cows with perfect horns. All the white cows
look mythic, white, perfect and identical They are quite used to the crowds, though there is some
essential pulling and straining. The people have been waiting for hours,
sitting on ledges outside the houses or on any odd crook of wall. There is a
sense of excitement, the boys race past on cycles or in gangs, the girls are
dazzling in their synthetic clothes with spangles and sequins. A new dress
culture has evolved among the children: keds, t-shirts with logos and shorts
for the boys, ubiquitous choodidar-kameez for the girls. Young women wear silk
saris with jasmines in their hair accompanied by siblings, parents, in-laws and
husband. Families move together in large
groups, many have come from other places.

The
Arogyadayam Ayurveda Hospital does good business. While we are talking, outpatients are taken by the masseurs for
treatment. They are happy with the treatment, and will perhaps tell others. The
Doctor’s wife shows me the 2 rooms, for resident patients, one is occupied by a
foreigner, another from an old lady who is from Chitoor. Her relatives have
come to meet her. She is definitely better, she says. The Doctor tells me that
in Ayurveda, they treat the person, so each treatment is singular.

14th
Nov 2010

Yesterday,
the “chiefs’ appeared on the dias – minister for tourism, MLAs, cultural
secretary, police officers. The minister for tourism has sanctioned 3 lakhs
rupees for the festival. Propogation of cultural values, the importance of
heritage, the celebration of religion, difference and diversity, the adaptation
of traditional culture to internet and other technologies, and the significance
of inter-religious, and intercommunity dialogue, were the main themes of the
talks. After the speeches, Sharrat, a famous film musician who has supported
classical music in films introduced a young musician who sang to a very
musically enlightened audience, for three hours. He passed the test, though
some said “ A novice!He sang endlessly!” and people went home satisfied at 10
p.m. The ter is out again, travelling slowly from Ganesh temple to Swaminathan
temple. People continue to flow into the streets, a steady river of human
beings, all excited by the presence of the Gods. The normally quiet street is
packed with visitors. Rajshri tells me that during Ter. people continuously
visit them, all their relativesand
friends gather together. They all eat together, Everywhere else, people return
home for Diwali and Christmas, but here they assemble together for Ter. Her
parents have gone to feed the visiting priests and teachers and gurus, vadayars
at the temple. Since this is an age old custom.

Rajshri
takes me to her house, and introduced me to her cousins and aunts. Everyone has
collected here – cousins, aunts, in laws. The house is large, with glass fitted
into the tiles. So a lovely dim light comes in. It is a hushed tinted light,
keeping the house incredibly cool. There are no partitions, no separations, no
alcoves or hidden spaces. In a joint household, everything is shared.
Collective or joint living means that every room is accessible to every one
else. At the back there is a large garden. It extends with adjoining gardens,
to a boundary wall. Each house stands in close proximity to the the neighbours
such that the wall of each house, shares bricks with the next. The Government
does not allow renovation of the front part of the house any longer, inside and
beyond can be renovated. Rajshri explains the route of the ter:

Shiv
and Shakti have 2 ters, Ganapathy has one.

They
meet in the same street in New Kalpathy

Ambikapuram
has its own ter, related to Guruvayur.

Old
Kalpathy has Lakshmi Narayan

Chattapuram
has Krishna.

Each
ter with its God orGods will meet the
people.She says,

The
main function of the Ter is to have the Gods meet the people. There are people
who cannot come to the temple, so once a year, the Gods come to visit the
people to see them in their homes. Rajshri says that when the Pallakad king
invited them to live in the 18 villages, the migrant Brahmins had only one
condition: that the ter festivals which they celebrated in their village in
Mayavaram, should be celebrated in the Pallakad villages in every detail.
Rajshri sends me an email circular outlining the said events. It consists of
seven pages, and has a long list of recipients all having a personal interest
in the Kalpathy rath festival, and mentioning the cultural music festival
events by date and event.

The
festival is described as starting with Dwajarohanam (flag hoisting) and ends
with Rathasangamom according to the publicity circular sent by emailto several residents and diaspora
Tamilians.(http:co114.coll 14.mail.live.
com/mail/PrintMessages.aspx?cpids+1820f011-5bfa-1.4.2011.) To quote,

“This
year, The Kalpathy Car festival is scheduled to be held from November 8 to 16,
2010/ The Dwajarohanam (Flag hoisting ) will be held on November 8th.
The Ratha Sangamom will be held before the Viswanatha Swamy temple on the
evening of November 16th. The main attraction of the car festival is
on the last three days, i.e from 14th to 16th November
2010. On these three days the chariots are ceremoniously drawn through the
streets

On
the first day (14th Nov) the three chariots carrying the deities of
Sree Viswanatha Swamy temple is taken out in procession. The first chariot is
of Lord Shiva and Parvathi. The second chariotis of Lord Vigneswara and the third is of Lord Subramanya. The chariots
set out on Grama Pradikshanam, which is the village tour, around 10 in the
morning for a small distance and continues its journey to all the 4 nearby
agraharams and returns to its base on the 3rd day evening, where the
Ratha Sangamom takes place.

On
the second day (15th Nov) Lord Maha Ganapathy which is the presiding
deity ofNew Kalpathy temple is taken
out on procession.

On
the final day (16th November) Lord Maha Ganapathy which is the
presiding deity of New Kalpathy temple is taken out on procession.

On
the final day (16th November) the deities of Lakshmi Narayan Perumal
of Old Kalpathy and Mahaganapthy of Chatapuram villages are taken around the
villages on their chariots.

In
the evening on the final day (26th Nov) Deva Ratha Sangamom – the
congregation of all the chariots – will take place in front of the Sree
Viswanatha Swamy Temple.”

Field Notes April 2011

On an earlier fieldwork
visit,( Visvanathan 2006) the farmers
in Kannadi village had told me that water for the fields comes from Mallampuzha
dam, and that in the summer, the water is not released so that paddy
cultivation suffers. Padmaja Sasi Kumar who works in the Panchayat of Kannadi
says Virripu (Kharif) from June to September and Mandakkam (Rabi) November to
December are the two main cropping seasons. Poonja is from February to May, and
this is when the farmers are advised to go for short crop duration, 90 days,
130 days and so, or for mixed cropping seasons. Farmers are given a schedule of
the water release plan from Mallampuzha. Because of fragmentation of land,
unlike the Tamil Nadu farmer, who works with hundreds of acres, the Kerala
farmer works with 5-10 cents, sometimes 25 cents. Labour charge is too high, so
farming is actually dependent on other activity such as school teaching,
employment in private firms or government service. It is supported not only by
mixed cropping (coconuts, arecanuts, yams, banana) but also keeping of cattle
and fish in ponds or in rice fields. Earlier Bharatapuzha had water, now rivers
are drying up because of plants and trees which are not cleared, and mining
which aggravates the condition, paddy lands converted into real estate, so no
water drains into the soil but is cemented up, December 15th onward
water is released from the Dam.

Mallampuzha Dam is a
recreational site where families gather for picnics. The water supplies
Pallakad town with drinking water, so in the summer months, there is no
diversion to Agriculture, but only piped to the town. The water is locked in,
it is a peaceful lake, fenced off from tourists. Against the backdrop of the
sky and theNilgiris, the water is
beautifulexpanse of clear blue. There
is an electric wire trolley car which gives an aerial view of the dam, a snake
museum and an aquarium, and a garden which is closed for renovation. There is
most significantly a temple to Hidimba, rakshasa wife to Bhima.

Colonel Venugopal who has
accompanied me to the dam on my first visit speaks of the case for highlighting
the exclusion of the brahmans in modern times for reasons believed to do with
the punishingof traditional hegemony.

“Though there is no evidence of
the Tamil Brahmins’ criminality, he has been excluded from all things
economicor beneficial, particularly in
Tamil Nadu.”The diaspora Tamil often
communicates why poverty made them leave their villages, compounded by the
ignominy of state neglect because they are upper caste. Colonel Venugopal has
published an account of a Pallakad Brahmin family centred around his mother,
called Ittyamma. His father was an entomologist in the employee of the king.
Once he asked his father for one anna to buy a pencil of German make, because
the poor boys in the class got free books, new pens, but since he was a
scientist’s son, he was excluded. He longed for a pen, his father agreed to
give him the money to buy one. When he went to school, his friends said “Lets
buy peanuts instead.” Before he knew what was happening, he was persuaded. A
large quantity of peanuts was bought and distributed among the boys. Trailing
home he went to his father’s laboratory and asked his father’s assistant
toloan him a pencil. When his father
came home, he asked to see the new pencil, so Venu showed him the pencil.His father said, “This is a glass marking
pencil.” (interview 18.4.11) Sanjay Subramanium, David Shulman and Narayana
Rao, while discussing the emergence of folktales in Tamil Nadu, write thatThe poor Brahmin pits his wit, lies and
survives. The folktale is a parody of, not a foil to high caste, Sanskritic
modes. Parody pivots on a hinge that swings in two directions, both towards and
away from the subject. Satire works in a linear fashion. Parody mingles domains
and superimposes or interweaves contrasting visions, including competing
notions of the real. There is real kingship and there is illusory kingship.
Both wield power. What are the contexts in which we can see parallelstructures at work? (Naryana Rao et al pg 21)

The Pallakad raja and the tamil
Brahmin are the two subjects ofanalyses, in this legendary motif, but on the other hand, we cannot
understand agriculture without the serf, who wins in the end….as in the
disestablishment of Cocoa Cola in Pallakad.

23.5.11

The Mallampuzha dam wasestablished in 1956 as part of India’s
development project. It provides drinking water to Palakad town, and water to
the farmers, from November to March. From April onwards, the Dam water is
released on specificdays. Mr Shekhar,
the engineer who speaks to me has been trained in Mar Athanasius Engineering
College in Ernakulam.

There was a conference going on
the day that I visited (19.4.11) So, while I was not permittedto attend the meeting (in fact so
confidential that the engineers were locked in! ) I was informed that the discussion was around
the question of increased surveillance, cctv cameras etc. There has been no
trouble, the dam site is peaceful. It is a “large dam” for Kerala, but in
comparison to others in India, a small dam.People (large numbers come from all parts of Kerala and Tamilnadu) are threatening agitation because the garden is
closed for renovation. There are many people from Tamil Nadu who come to the
Dam after visiting Kanayakumariand
Guruvayur and other temple sites. Busloads of gaily dressed peasants, including
honey mooners arrive, and visit the pleasure booths (rides, food, lucky
dipand toy stalls.) There is a fish
aquarium and a snake zoo. Since it is ticketed some of the poorer citizens sit
despondently but still, the dam conveys a sense of a leisure zone.

On the way back I caught a bus
to Kalpathy. The old woman sitting next to me was in traditional Syrian
Christian dress: white mundu or sarong, and white shirt or jacket, and a cotton
drapeover it, also white. I asked her,
“Are you alone?” She pointed to a boy at the back. He was about 14 years old.
“Isn’t it too hot to come to a tourist site?” I ask her conversationally.She looked back at
me blankly.

“I live here.” She said.

“Where?” I was totally puzzled.

“Behind the dam. In a village
called Annakallu (Elephant Stone). Elephants still come down the hill. We have
to fence it. The agriculture is good. We grow everything that we did in Naadu
(that is Kerala before 1956). Its not hot here, the cool breezes come downthe hill. The rain falls, and we have planted
many trees. We came from Moovatapuzha and bought the land cheaply 35 years ago
from farmers who feared the Dam. I am going for an eye check up. My son will
meet me inPallakad. The boy
accompanying me is his son, my grandson, training to be a Kappiar ( a deacon).
We belong to the Patriarch of Antioch’s party. No, he cannot visit us, since there
is a war. He will be killed if he comes by sea. (I think she must be
remembering the story of the Jacobite bishop who was killed in 1664 at sea by
adversaries when he made a visit to see faithful followers of the Antiochene
rite) He could come through the forest. People of all religions, Hindu Muslims
and Christians live peacefully in Annakalu.”

I had to leap off the bus,
since, the agraharam of Kalpathy where I
stay had come.